Jubilee Year

by Gerard O'Neill

  “Where do they come from?” Penny asked.

  “Well, they appear to originate from a vast field of rubble called the Kuiper belt that more or less surrounds the solar system,” Michael said. “Something big has bumped them in our direction.”

  “Well, there's nothing new about the idea of a planet orbiting beyond the fringe of our solar system,” Stephen said, after clearing his throat.

  “Yes, but we're talking about a planet-sized object or something larger that’s heading our way,” Karl interjected.

  “I think that's nonsense,” Stephen said, his face reddening with annoyance. He pushed himself out of the chair and stood up with a quick glance in Adrienna's direction, and he saw that she concurred with his thoughts.

  “Must be time to head off,” Stephen said.

  “So soon, Stephen?” Franchette asked in surprise.

  “Yes, I suppose it is time we were off,” Adrienna declared, and she gave Franchette a wan smile. “Stephen and I do need to be on the road early in the morning. Thank you, to both of you for your wonderful hospitality.”

  When the men brought the clutter of the barbecue into the kitchen, Penny watched in horror as her mother shooed them away from the pile of dishes. She knew when Franchette was about to lumber her with a request.

  “Are you heading back to town tonight?” Franchette asked when the last male vanished from the kitchen.

  “Yes,” Penny said with a sigh. “Is this going to be about Storm and me?”

  “Oh, for goodness' sake, Penny! No-no. It's about your graduation.”

  Penny was stunned to see Franchette's eyes tearing.

  “I'm on call at the hospital and I can't possibly attend it. You know how they run such a tight ship. They have scheduled me to work every evening that week.” Franchette shook her head. “It's such bad luck.”

  It would have been better if Michael were present, Franchette thought. But he's such a coward when it comes to having conversations like this with his own family. He should have told Penny ages ago. When he found out the date of his symposium. He could be so trying.

  “Mom! Didn't you put in a request? Dad is going to be there—right?”

  “Michael has the symposium to prepare for,” Franchette said, biting her bottom lip when she saw Penny's reaction. “I overlooked requesting leave.”

  Maybe that wasn't quite true. Work was always so busy. She really couldn't remember which came first, the work or the decision.

  “I'm awfully sorry,” Franchette continued. “But I have booked you a beautiful room for three days at a wonderful hotel right beside the Opera House. Why don't you ask Storm if he wants to go with you?”

  Her suggestion caught Penny by surprise, and despite her disappointment, she felt herself blushing.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course. You are both adults. He's almost nineteen, isn't he?”

  “Sometimes he seems much older,” Penny admitted. “Yes, he does,” Franchette smiled.

  “And sometimes not,” Penny added.

  Franchette gazed at her daughter. “Well? What do you think of my idea?”

  “I'm pretty pissed off; you know? It wasn't like either of you didn't get plenty of warning.”

  “The demands of our work is often beyond our control, my dear. If we were living in our Sydney home, it would be very different. But, sadly, we are not.”

  Penny pulled herself together. She was going to have to take it on the chin.

  “I'm not sure if I am ready for such a relaxed mother.”

  “Not relaxed, darling. Liberal!” Franchette said the last word with a raised eyebrow and a knowing smile.

  “Okay, my liberal mother, I forgive you,” Penny said. “Should I tell Storm it was your idea?”

  “I don't mind,” Franchette said with a smile. She was in fact truly relieved. Her little talk with Penny had gone over much better than she could ever have expected.

  10

  Killer Riders

  “It's a dead wombat,” Penny informed him, and she quickly closed her window.

  Storm gazed into the side mirror at the still form of the marsupial lying on its back, all four feet rigid in the air and bloated with gas to the size of a fattened calf.

  “I told you not to do that! It’s stunk up the car.”

  “The poor thing,” she said. “They don't move fast enough to cross a busy road.”

  She watched lightning leap across the line of jagged hills that ran like a row of broken teeth along the horizon.

  “I wish we were home,” Penny muttered.

  “Why? Are you afraid?”

  “I usually like storms,” she said adding emphasis to the last word. She glanced at him and smiled before turning back to stare through her side window at the peaks, which for all the world looked to be lit by flickering spotlights.

  “I've had quite enough of the kind we've been getting lately.”

  He tapped a beat on the steering wheel, rapping broken and yet familiar lyrics. “Riders... killaa...”

  “That sounds strangely familiar,” Penny said, giving him a pained look.

  “Didn't you ever play Need for Speed?” he asked in reply.

  “I know the game. It has Snoop Dog's version of the song by Jim Morrison and the Doors.”

  “Never heard of that group, but, yeah, Snoop Dog is da man!” He said, and he began singing again.

  “Has Stella got anything good to listen to in here?” She said, opening the glove box and fossicking around inside.

  “Wait-wait! I'm getting to the best bit.”

  “Hell no!” She protested. “Anything but your singing.”

  “Try this one,” he said, reaching past her into the glove box and pulled out a disk. “You like them, right?” He waved it in front of her.

  “Hey, look out!” She yelled, grabbing the steering wheel from him and turning it just in time.

  “Bloody useless roos!” Storm exclaimed as he braked hard.

  The back wheels of the car locked on the loose metal of the verge and spun across the road. When they opened their eyes, they saw they were facing the way they had come.

  “Shit, Storm!” She yelled. “We're really lucky there was no one coming the other way.”

  Storm breathed in deeply. He knew how close he had come to rolling the car. He gazed at her in stunned silence for a moment before he finally spoke. “Why were they on the road?” It was a lame attempt to distract her from continuing the attack.

  “I suppose they must have been spooked by the lightning,” she sighed. She pulled her fingers through her hair. It was becoming a bad habit.

  “God!” She exclaimed, angry all over again. “You know, you almost killed us!”

  Storm felt his cheeks flush, but he didn't reply. He started the engine and turned the car around. “Looks like one of them wasn't fast enough,” he said, peering into the side mirror.

  Penny opened her window and gazed back down the road. “That poor thing,” she said. She turned to glare at him once again. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I'm sorry—Okay?”

  He unfastened his seatbelt. He knew it wasn't okay at all. He had almost killed the two of them. The thought sent a chill through him.

  “You've been acting aggro ever since we left Dad's,” she muttered.

  Storm didn’t reply as he got out of the car.

  He saw the animal lying on its side in the grass a few feet away. Its back legs were twitching, but that didn’t mean it was still alive. He heard a plaintive bleat as he crouched down beside the young roo.

  “At least its back's not broken,” Penny said as she peered over his shoulder at the bloodied muzzle. “How do we pick it up?”

  “What?” He stared up at her. “We are not picking it up!”

  “We can't leave it here. You can put it in the boot.”

  “And take it where exactly, Pen?”

  “To the Animal Refuge.”

  “They'll be closed.”

  “I'l
l ring Kay Wilkins,” she said as she reached down to touch the soft fur. “She's a friend of Mom's.”

  “I don't know Pen, but sometimes it's better to...”

  But he looked up and caught the familiar warning flash in her eyes. It was pointless arguing with her. She would lift it up herself and get kicked for her effort. Then they might be heading to the hospital instead of the veterinary clinic.

  “I'll go back to the car and get the blanket from the back seat,” he told her. He covered the head of the injured animal to calm it and gathered it up in his arms. The well-muscled roo youngster was heavier than it looked.

  “Were you able to reach her?” He asked as they drove off.

  “Yes,” she told him. “She's about to close for the night but she's going to wait—you never answered my question, did you?”

  He shrugged in response.

  “Was it something Mom said to you?”

  “No, I enjoyed myself, and your mom was fine,” he said, remembering how much he had been freaked when Penny gave him the same wink he had got from her mother. “The things your dad talks about are really interesting.”

  “Dad likes you,” Penny replied. “They both do. Dad wants me to bring you up for an evening so you can see the telescope in use.”

  “Cool,” Storm replied.

  “So what's been bugging you ever since we left?” She persisted.

  “It's nothing, Pen. I drank too much. I shouldn't be driving.”

  “That's true. Mom thought I was driving us back.”

  They drove on in silence for many minutes, watching forks of electricity dance over the broken hills, black against the incandescent sky. When he spoke again it was without warning and she jumped as if a bolt struck the car.

  “They're all doing what they enjoy! And—they seem to know an awful lot. You know what I mean?”

  “You are younger than them,” she said. “You've lots of time to learn what makes you happy. Once you leave Coona.”

  “Getting my pilot's license will make me happy,” he replied. “But it looks like I'm stuck here helping Mom pay off our mortgage for another year.”

  There were so many bills to be paid, he thought. The electricity and food bills for starters. Then there were Summer's school fees. His hands tightened on the steering wheel at the thought of the bills Stella would struggle to pay without his help. The thought of it made him feel like he was suffocating.

  “Even if the government decided to make university free I could never afford the textbooks, let alone the cost of renting a room.”

  “Things will get better,” Penny said, nodding her head resolutely as if it would make things so.

  “Yeah, right!” Storm replied with unconcealed sarcasm. “That's what Mom says too.”

  Under the car's headlamps, the centerline rushed by like a great serpent racing them into the darkness.

  When they pulled up outside the Happy Help Animal Refuge, Kay was standing on the steps of the surgery.

  “I was about to go home to eat my dinner,” she called out in greeting.

  Penny looked surprised. “You haven't eaten yet?”

  “I haven't even been home,” Kay replied. “It's been a long day. I guess that's my patient,” she added at the sound of scuffling and scraping from inside the car boot.

  “It's moving, and that's a good sign.”

  Inside the surgery, they stood in front of the stainless steel table used for both examinations and minor operations. After ten minutes of probing and testing, Kay had locked the animal inside a cage in a room that seemed packed with wildlife.

  “I couldn't find any broken bones,” she told them as she filled out a log book. “If it can survive the night, it will be fine.”

  “Would we have been right to leave it lying in the grass to get up in its own good time?” Storm asked her.

  Kay didn't look up as she wrote. “Hard to tell,” she said clicking the pen and closed the book on it.

  “I wasn't going that fast,” Storm said, a little too defensively.

  Penny blew a raspberry at him.

  “They were spooked!” He protested. “You saw them running along the side of the road. Then next thing you know they're bouncing along in front of us,” he said to Penny, hoping for support. “C'mon, you saw them!”

  “You two wouldn't believe what we've been seeing here the past few weeks,” Kay said as she reached her hand around the clinic door and flicked off the light. “The weather we've been having has freaked out all the critters. There have been so many animals hit by vehicles. We've never seen anything like it!”

  “No kidding,” Storm replied, although he wasn't surprised. In only the past couple of months, he had noticed farm stock looking lost and strung-out for no good reason. They looked as if they were suffering the effects of a virus. Yet, no one in Coona had mentioned anything about a virus hitting the area. If one was around to affect the livestock, everyone would have been talking about it, but they weren’t.

  “We've had animals on farms getting stuck in weird places and needing to be rescued. It just gets crazier and crazier,” Kay continued. “We've run out of foster homes for our orphans. They have all the baby kangaroos, kookaburras, snakes, and echidnas they can handle.”

  The three of them stood outside the clinic for a short while, watching the lightning break the sky into broken shards over the outback.

  “These electrical storms just never seem to stop these past few weeks,” Kay said, opening her car door. “It's getting crazy!”

  11

  About Time

  Pete stood on the footpath gazing at the Home for Sale sign. Since when had Stella started to think about moving? She had the house looking tidy enough. The gardens needed a little attention, but that was no deal breaker for anyone serious about buying. Similar for sale signs had sprung up all over town this past year. The problem was that no one was buying.

  It took him several minutes before he ventured to open the gate. He slammed it shut harder than he intended. That was when he heard a screech from inside the house.

  The front door flew open and Summer ran down the path to leap into his bear hug. He swung her around in a circle before letting her gently to the ground. Stella stood on the front doorstep smiling warmly at him.

  Pete was moved.

  As he walked up the porch steps with his hand in his daughter's, he caught the uncertainty in Stella's eyes. To his relief, the smile remained.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hey, Stell,” he replied.

  Pete was grinning at her like an idiot.

  “Can I come inside?” He asked his wife.

  “Of course,” Stella replied.

  She gave a nervous giggle and raised her hand to her mouth. “I'll make us a cuppa,” she mumbled. But, she didn’t move, continuing to stare as if she didn’t quite believe he was there. She dropped her hand and took a deep breath.

  “It’s good to see you, Pete.”

  He sat on Stella's tattered couch cast his eyes around the living room. He tried to avoid staring directly at the cracked wood front of the crockery cabinet opposite him. He saw that Stella's glassware, cups, saucers, and silver spoons behind the glass had all survived. A jumble of bits and pieces she had been collecting over the years.

  More than two years had passed since that horrible night when he threw her against the cabinet. It was the first time he had done anything like that and it was the last. It had occurred to him if there was a next time he might do worse. He left of his own accord the very next day.

  Summer was perched on the back of a chair at the end of the table wearing a big grin that would not go away.

  “I would have thought you'd be out with your friends on a Saturday,” he ventured.

  “I've been waiting for ages to see Mom and you together again. I’m not going to miss it for the world.”

  “Pete's only visiting, love,” her mother called from the kitchen. “We are not back together yet.”

  Pete stifled a coug
h with the edge of his hand.

  Stella came back with two mugs of hot tea.

  “Summer, clear those magazines off the coffee table in the corner and bring it over to your dad,” Stella said. “And find some placemats, will you?”

  Stella sat opposite Pete and glanced at Summer. Her daughter’s precocious smile was beginning to annoy her. “Sum, sweetie, do you think you could go outside for a while? Pete and I have stuff to talk about.”

  “Awl, Mom! What am I supposed to do outside? I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “Go on a bike ride,” Stella told her. “Go visit your friend down the street. What's her name?”

  “Tara.”

  “Yeah, why don’t you go see Tara?”

  “Dunno if she's home.”

  “For goodness' sake! Your dad and I need time to talk—alone!”

  “Awl, Mom!” Summer looked hopefully from Stella to Pete. “I want to stay with the two of you!”

  “You can, sweetie! You're here for dinner aren't you, Pete?”

  “Course I am,” Pete said and he laughed. “See you later, Sum.”

  Stella returned Summer’s wave. She waited until she heard the sound of the bicycle clanking down the driveway before she spoke again. “Is your tea okay?”

  “It's fine, Stell,” he said and glanced down at his half-empty cup. “It’s been a while since I was last over to see you.”

  “Sure is,” she said. She took a long sip of her coffee and sat back in her chair. “Have you been eating well?”

  He waved off the question. “What do you think of the girl Storm's seeing?”

  “She's lovely,” Stella replied. “And you know Franchette's her mother?”

  “No way!” He said with a look of astonishment.

  “Doctor Franchette Boulos,” Stella nodded. “Your doctor. So how come you didn't know that?”

  “Storm's never mentioned a thing about the kind of work her mom does. Come to think of it, Penny speaks like she might be a doctor herself,” Pete answered. He attempted to mimic Franchette's crisp consonants and clear vowels.